Friday afternoon, June 30, 2006, dh left with our 2 sons, 2 nephews
and niece to head up north to his parents for our annual 4th of July
vacation. I was sad to be missing it, but excited at the prospect
that I may be holding a new baby in my arms when they arrived back
home. I took advantage of the empty house and cleaned until my heart
was content. I even got a bath in for our Great Dane, Roxanne! That
evening I went out to return some things to the library and to the
video store, so while I was out, I ran into Dunham's Sports store to
see if they had a fish scale that I would be able to weigh the baby
with at the birth. They did! Now I was really ready. I fell asleep
easily that night with all the hard work I had done, it was nice
knowing the house was clean and prepared for a new blessing.

Saturday, July 1, 2006, 8 am. I couldn't believe I had slept so long!
I usually found myself miserable and aching in my shoulders and hips
by about 5 am and here it was 8 o'clock! What was it that woke me up
again? Oh yeah, that warm gush of fluid. My water bag was just
trickling a little amniotic fluid, good thing I had thought to lay the
waterproof pads down on the mattress in my cleaning frenzy the night
before. Well, that got me up quickly and I started in on the day.
First things first, a cup of ice. Ahhh. Then I decided to give
Roxanne a good day-after-bath brushing, badly needed and I didn't want dog
hair all over my nicely cleaned house! When I came back in from that,
I noticed a little surprise when I visited the bathroom, my mucous
plug! I knew the birth could still be a ways away as my water bag
could easily reseal itself and I could continute to lose parts of my
mucous plug for weeks, but I set about pulling things out for the
birth anyway. I had blown up the birth pool the night before, so I
opened up the brand new hose dh had just bought for the birth and
started filling the pool with warm water from the kitchen sink. I
laid plastic down leading from the pool to the bathroom and also to my
bedroom. I felt those would be the main areas of the house I'd be
visiting in a potentially messy physical state. Once I had that task
completed, I went online and read uc stories on c-birth until about noon. I
decided I should try to take a nap, as contractions were coming every
4 to 12 minutes and I knew it could be a very long day ahead of me.

No sooner did I lay down and start dozing off than I heard the squeak
of my back door and my darling little sister tiptoeing over the
plastic I had laid down in the hallway. She seemed startled at the
birth supplies out in the house. I reassured her that everything was
fine, tried to convince her that I was not in labor, and after a few
questions, she was gone. No nap for me. I had hoped to labor in the
peace that no one would know I was laboring and I wouldn't be
receiving any worrisome phone calls or visits wondering if I had
produced a baby yet. Oh well, I could still hope for a little of that.

I decided to get up and lock all the doors, pull all the blinds and
turn the phone off. I also started on the second round of filling the
birth pool (could only fill it about 1/3 of the way at a time before
the hot water ran out). It was almost 3:30 by this time, contractions
were gaining in intensity, but still about 3-12 minutes apart. I
found it helpful to start visualizing riding a horse during each
contraction. I would imagine myslef on a big pleasure horse loping
around in a nice easy circle. Each stride the horse took was a deep
breath that I took through another contraction. It helped
tremendously, until about 6:30. At that time I made a note to myself
on the paper I had been recording contractions on, "The excitement is
over, now I have a job to do." It was clear that the baby was coming.
The phone rang and it was dh calling for our daily chat. I didn't
answer since I was right in the middle of a contraction and didn't want
him to worry once he knew I was in labor. As soon as that contraction
passed, I called him right back and made sure to cut the conversation
short before the next contraction arrived.

I realized by now that it was probably safe to get in the birth pool.
So I began on the final filling, but I just could not wait for it to
be completely filled before getting in. I decided I'd just have to
find it in me to get out and shut the water off once it was filled.
It was about 7:30 pm by now. The water made the contractions easier
to focus on since I didn't have to support any part of my body other
than keeping the back of my head on the edge of the pool. I would
just let my legs and arms float through each contraction, it helped in
keeping my body from tensing up too. I had 8 or so of these intense
contractions that way and I thought to flip over onto my belly, hoping
a change in position might help keep me more comfortable. So now I
had my arms and head resting on the edge of the pool, my legs floating
out straight behind me. I only had a couple of contractions this way
before I noticed that I let out a little grunt at the peak of a
contraction. It kind of startled me as I had been totally silent up
until this point, not wanting to waste any extra energy on vocalizing,
I needed all the energy I could get to stay on top of each
contraction. The next contraction I noticed a couple of grunts coming
from me and they were getting louder. I couldn't believe what was
happening: my body was pushing, it was time to push!!! I never
checked myself for dilation since I remembered being so disappointed
during Cassius's birth when I wasn't farther along than I had hoped. I
couldn't believe how quickly things were moving along this time. So
at 8 pm I started pushing in earnest. I had placed a 5 gallon bucket
near the edge of the pool to put the placenta in after the birth and
also to vomit in if the need arose (thankfully, it did not despite
having eaten all throughout the day). I really needed something solid
and firm to grasp while I was pushing, so the bucket proved to be
useful for that as well. I only had about 4 pushing contractions
before I could start to feel the bones in pelvis moving apart. The
baby was descending. Next contraction I felt that ring of fire and I
quickly sat up onto the bottoms of my feet, still squatting and then I
could feel a head. It was a hairy, squishy head with little ears on
the side. Oh, what glory(!!!), I knew the hard part was over. I
immediately started talking to the baby, asking for patience for the
next contraction, "you're almost here..." The next contraction came
within a minute or two and I slowly started to feel those little ears
rotate in my hands, the baby turned to allow the shoulders to pass and
then was floating face down in the water, all limbs outstretched.
Whew, I did it! I noticed the cord was around the shoulders, so I
unwound that before I lifted the baby onto my chest. I grabbed an arm
with one hand and the little butt with my other hand. When I realized
I had a hand full of testicles, I knew Caine and Cassius had been
right all along, we had ourselves a boy! And he was just perfect, a
full head of black hair, fat rolls everywhere, and covered in thick
vernix.

He didn't breath right away, waited maybe 30 sec or a minute, but I
was never worried as I could still feel the cord pulsing and knew he
was getting everything he needed still from the placenta. I tried
sucking any mucous out of his nose and mouth with my mouth, but there
just wasn't any there. I just rolled him onto his belly so any
mucous could drain out of him and rubbed all of that vernix into his
soft back. I was just so elated that he was here! And the only ones
to witness it were the Lord and my sweet dog, Roxanne. She had laid
on her dog bed right next to the pool the entire time and just watched
me. It was comforting having her there. She refuses to go outside
now for any length of time, just wants to be inside with the baby and I.

I knew that the next decision to be made was whether I should get out
of the water before the placenta came or wait for it in the water. I
didn't have much time to ponder that, as it came exactly 10 minutes
after the baby had left my body. Even though it was floating
outside of my body, I could feel that a small piece of it was still
attached, but I just gently tore it away (should have probably waited
to see if another contraction came to let it completely separate). I
put it into a strainer over the 5 gallon bucket and carried the baby,
the bucket and myself out of the water and to my bedroom. Boy, was I
ever glad I laid all that plastic down on the floor! I didn't want to
take any chances of hemmorhaging with me being completely alone, so I
never hesitated in eating part of the placenta. I just tore a piece
off of the maternal side with my hand. It was a much bigger piece
than I had intended to eat, but never wanting to be wasteful, I just
crammed the whole thing in my mouth before I could change my mind. I
chewed on it as long as I could tolerate and swallowed. Then I laid
the baby on my bed wrapped in a towel with his placenta next to him
and quickly jumped in the shower to wash all the blood off my legs.
Finally I was able to get us situated and cuddling in bed.

I couldn't wait to share the news with dh. It was now only about 9:00
pm or so, just a few hours after I had talked to him earlier in the
day to say hi. I told him we had a baby, his first question was,
"what kind?" Cute, I told him we had a boy! My niece must have been
right there next to him because she was the first person he told. She
really wanted a girl, but when she got on the phone with me she told
me she'd love a little boy too. Al yelled to Caine that he had a new
little brother and I guess he was excited, but not enough to stop
playing. Cassius wanted to end his vacation and come home right away
to see the baby, but they still had a few days left. Although I would
have loved having the boys here to experience the birth with me,
having the house empty for those first few days really turned out to
be a blessing. The contractions following this birth lasted 3 days
and they were as bad as the labor contractions, I certainly was not
anticipating that!

I reluctantly cut the cord on the 3rd night, it kept getting caught in
between his toes when he would kick and it was pulling at his belly
button. I was hoping for a full lotus birth
(http://www.pregnancy.com.au/lotus_birth_1.htm) but I'm pleased that
we made it as long as we did. His placenta is now in our freezer and
will be planted under some glorious tree. He's looking just a tad
jaundiced now so we've been spending 5-10 minutes in the sun each day
to help take care of that. The milk fairy visited me on day 2, so
that's made him more comfortable and me a little more uncomfortable -
all just part of having babies!

So all in all, the birth was perfect and I'll give all the glory to
God. I feel so utterly blessed to have this child and also to have
had the chance to give him such a peaceful birth. He never cried once
until the second day. Unfortunately, I didn't find much encouragement
for my birth plan from friends and family during my pregnancy, yet
never once did my heart waiver from knowing everything would be fine.
I hope that my experience and this birth story can help shine a light
in other's hearts that there are options in childbirth for those that
seek them. It's not medically necessary that it be managed by
"professionals," after all, pregnancy and childbirth are not illnesses
that need to be "treated." I never saw a doctor once (other than
getting chiropractic care every two weeks)through my entire pregnancy,
just took care to eat right and rest when I needed it. I never had
one "scare" thrown at me from a doctor that you so often hear about.
I attribute the ease of this birth to the intentional and complete
lack of outside interference, I wouldn't change a single thing, praise
God.